Alamogordo city officials: Bonito Lake not for sale

By Dianne Stallings

dstallings@ruidosonews.com

Posted:
06/29/2013 04:51:38 PM MDT

RUIDOSO >> Even though Bonito Lake may take years to recover from the effects of the Little Bear Fire and subsequent flooding last June, Alamogordo city officials told Lincoln County commissioners last week that they aren't interested in selling the municipal reservoir.

The offer to buy the Lincoln County lake that is owned by the city of Alamogordo came from Lincoln County Commission Chairman Jackie Powell. Estimates to restore the reservoir have run as high as $60 million.

"I think I have consensus that Lincoln County always is interested as this plays out because we know we will be facing this for 15 to 20 years, depending on how the water supply goes," Powell said during a county commission meeting that included a review of the lake's condition. "The county always is interested in negotiations for purchasing the lake. I just wanted to offer that up in a friendly manner. That's always an option."

Brian Cesar, public works director for the city, told Lincoln County's commissioners that one year after the Little Bear Fire burned the mountain watershed and flooded the lake, city officials still are working with representatives of the Federal Emergency Management Agency to determine pre-fire sediment levels.

Cesar said he hopes to move ahead with a 60-day contract to draw core samples from the lake silt, which are needed to determine its condition before the flooding. As part of the same contract, sampling will be performed to measure heavy metal content in the silt, which will determine what the city needs to do to dispose of the material dredged from the lake. A disposal site has yet to be selected, he said.

This week, Cesar said he expects to have two pumps delivered to Bonito Lake that can each move 3,600 gallons per minute. They will be kept on-site, if a safe place to store them is available in Lincoln County. The city's West Lake Campground was damaged and closed, and a secure city option for the $260,000 pumps is not available, he said.

Lincoln County Emergency Services Manager Joe Kenmore said he would find a secure place for the pumps.

The lake sits at 14.5 feet below the spillway, Cesar said, but about 40 feet of silt exists and the line that normally would be used to drain the lake is not viable. Water still is being released into the stream from the bottom of the dam, he said. The flows increase and decrease throughout the season and the line occasionally clogs, he added.

"A little bit of good news is that we have taken water samples from the lake and our fecal counts are down low enough that we could start pulling water," Cesar said. "We're just waiting for the heavy metals testing (of the water) and the (chemical samples)."

He said he hopes to see those testing results this soon. If the readings are safe, the city will begin pulling water at 2,200 gallons per minute, compared to 1,600 gpm through the intake valve at the bottom of the dam.

Lincoln County Commissioner Preston Stone said the area hasn't even begun to see the amount of ash and silt that could come down during a heavy rain now that the terrain is stripped of vegetation.

"If we get a four-inch rain above that, what preparations have been made?" he asked. "I'm listening to two pumps with 7,200 gpm between them. If something like this was to happen, do we have plans to offset the damage that can be downstream?"

Kenmore said an alarm will alert officials as soon as water goes over the spillway by 6 inches and then another alarm at 2 feet, both going to the Lincoln County Sheriff's Department dispatch. Anyone with a landline telephone will receive a code red call to alert them. Others can sign up for a text or an email to be sent by going to the Code Red site on the county website, he said.

"Vigilance as the rain falls, we know we have to be there to coordinate," Kenmore said.

"At that point, it is life safety we are worried about," Commissioner Kathryn Minter said. "We don't want to put anybody's road department in the way of danger trying to remove debris. So we've done all we can to prepare getting the debris out ahead of time."

Commissioner Dallas Draper asked Kenmore and County Public Information Officer Michele Caskey to assess the direction of the water flow down the canyon if the dam was breached so that citizens living or visiting in the path can be warned.

"Not all are permanent residents; some are temporary and have no idea this is there. They need to have this information and some sort of plan when an alarm goes off to know exactly what to do, simple step by step," Draper said.

Powell said it was difficult to educate people who were used to a dry stream that it could swell from bank to bank in 20 minutes.

"Kraut Canyon hadn't been a player in Bonito Lake because it was a parking lot," she said of one of the canyons that flooded. "These were canyons that had never run previously."

Stahle said his words to residents of the canyon if four inches of rain falls are, "Get out.

"You will have a wall of water coming down that canyon you wouldn't' believe," he said. "We have a dangerous situation and are doing everything we can within the law to drain it off as fast as can, but we have to manage the resource within the law. Right now, we are not getting our water from the lake. It's a double-edged sword. We want it to rain, but are scared about the lake."

Cesar said the lake previously supplied about 15 percent of Alamogordo's water.

Draper said a significant amount of county money was spent on repairing the lake road and asked about some participation by Alamogordo. Cesar said road repair is part of the last project worksheet being negotiated with FEMA that also covers lake dredging and silt hauling.